


Leeward Side

by harcourt



Series: component parts [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Past non-consensual drug use, Rape Recovery, Recovery, h/c, past noncon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 21:37:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1526666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harcourt/pseuds/harcourt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1526516">Sextent</a>.</p><p>Clint doesn't belong to the Avengers. And he has his own life thank you very much.</p><p>A year and change later, Clint reconnects with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leeward Side

It's halfway through the summer, and a hot, still day when there's knock at the boathouse door. Logan pauses, but it's followed by silence. Which is weird, because everyone currently on the X-mansion grounds would start yelling their business right about now instead of silently waiting in the heat. Logan can hear the scuff of a boot, soft but clear over the incessant whine of water insects.

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Hold yer horses," Logan grumbles, even though there's been no sound of impatience. 

He stalks through the kitchen and is about to slam the door open when Barton--because of course it's Barton--puts his foot against the other side of it, with a cocked head and a grin. It's a softer look than Logan remembers, which is weird, because it's been a while, but not anywhere near long enough for Barton's facial expressions to have changed so much.

"Found someone new, Clint?" he asks, leaning against the doorframe on his side of the glass--it's the winter panels. No one's replaced them with the screens for the summer, and Logan can't be bothered now that it's halfway to autumn anyway.

"No," Barton says, then, "Maybe." And then, when Logan makes a move to push the door open, says, "Don't open the door." There's nothing he could do about it if Logan were to push the point. He's strong, but he's just human and not any competition for brute mutant strength.

Logan leaves it and instead steps away to grab a mug and pour himself some coffee, "You come all this way to stand out in the heat, then?"

"It's not _that_ far," Barton says, easily drawn into side-topics, as always, "It's just from down in the city."

Logan _huh_ -s and sips his coffee. Gestures in the general direction of the road with it. "How'd you get here, anyway? Steal a car?" Barton's grin widens, but he doesn't remove his foot from the door frame.

"Cap's bike."

 _That_ gets Logan's attention. "You have _Captain America_ 's bike?" Barton nods and looks completely fucking pleased with himself. It's as suspicious as _Remy_ looking pleased with himself, and in much the same way. "Does he _know_ you took it?"

"What? Of course he knows. It was his idea."

"Gonna let me out to go look at it?" Logan asks, nodding at where Barton's still propping the door closed with his foot, "Or d'you wanna come in out of the heat?"

"In a minute."

"You should get in the shade and have a drink. It's a long way to drive in your kinda shape." 

Barton looks up sharply, then shakes his head and removes his foot. Logan takes another sip of coffee. "Something happen to you, Barton?" he asks, because Barton's step back--making room for Logan to open the door--is hesitant, and it didn't used to be. They also didn't used to make their small talk through a door.

Barton glances up and away. "Yeah," he says, "something happened," and his face is shuttered for a moment, and then his grin comes back, a little. "Been awhile," he says.

It had. The better part of a year, maybe a bit more. Two or three cycles, depending. Possibly four. He's never been sure what Barton's schedule is like, with him on and off suppressants all the time and spending large portions of his time utterly fucked up from missions gone sour and god knew what. His appearances on Logan's doorstep have never been particularly regular.

"Figured you were on meds again," Logan says, by way of explaining why he hadn't been worried, or looked, or called. Things had been happening on his end of this deal, too, and he knows Barton gets it and won't hold it against him. It's not like they've ever been anything but a good time--a maybe twice, thrice yearly romp, tops--with little contact in between.

"Nah," Barton says, "Been off them, actually."

That's a weird thing for someone in their line of work, and more so for someone in Barton's particular brand of it--all enforced routine and scheduled blood checks and long missions away. 

"The longer you stand out there," Logan says, and takes another sip of coffee. He's not going to make the move. He's going to let Barton come in on his own good time, and after a minute or two, he does, gingerly reaching for the door's weathered handle and giving it a tug.

As soon as he does, the smell hits. Logan had scented it before, but it's strong now and Barton pauses as Logan sniffs the air, nostrils flaring, then huffs the scent of impending heat back out of his nose and gestures with his mug again. "Y're fine, Agent. Come in."

Barton does and drops his duffle by the door. Looks around the place the way he always he does, smiling like the little boathouse is a palace. "I love this place," he tells Logan, like he does whenever this is where they find each other.

"There's a whole mansion up the hill," Logan points out, but Barton just shrugs and toes off his boots. He smells like road and sun and dust and sweat and, stronger, of omega coming into cycle. The smell of it makes Logan's chest tighten, makes the friendly pleasure at seeing Barton again twist into something proprietary. He steps past Barton to close the door and Barton's head comes up. Tense and wary and Logan realizes that he's left it open on purpose.

"Fill me in on what's happened, or I don't touch you," Logan tells him, because whatever it is, it's related to this. To Barton's not showing up for so long, to his cycling, and to the watchful look he has about him whenever Logan gets near enough to scent. The whole thing with the door was enough of a clue, really.

"God," Barton says, "I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Tony just hacking whatever he wants to know."

"Spill the beans, Birdshot, or I'm calling Hank to come down here and shut you up in sickbay." Barton shudders, and Logan steps back to give him room, says, more gently, "What's going on, Clint? I say something?"

Barton's empty look turns into an uneasy grinning look, and he says, "Don't shut me up? Anywhere."

Oh. Omega-in-a-cage fears were never a sign of anything good. "Gotcha," Logan says, "Anything else?"

He gets a shrug as Barton helps himself to coffee, "A bunch of things." He says it like it's nothing, but Logan recognizes the tone from Jubes, from Gumbo, from a hundred other mutie kids who expect what they reveal of themselves to be flung back in their face, and Barton might be just human, but he's had his own share of flinging.

"You gonna fill me in on this _bunch of things_ , or do I have to guess when you're out of your mind with it?"

"Can't just send you a file, huh?" Barton asks, and Logan leans back against the kitchen table and considers him.

"You've been hanging around that Stark too much. No, you can't send me a file." There's no computer in the boathouse anyway and Logan likes it that way. "But you can tell me what happened."

Barton shakes his head, examining the contents of his chipped mug. "It--It's bad," he says, in a kind of uncertain warning.

"I'm sure I've heard worse." 

Logan has. Logan's _seen_ worse, but it still rips through him when Barton says, _locked me in with them_ , in a whisper and has to pretend to be fishing something out of his coffee for several minutes.

"And the bunch of things?" Logan asks, after a while, and Barton pulls a folded piece of rumpled paper from his jacket pocket and holds it out. Logan pauses with his fingers halfway to it, then takes it. There's the faint smell of sweat and fear and multiple alphas clinging to it, with a fainter undertone of omega in cycle. Barton doesn't have Logan's heightened senses and probably can't smell it, but it's enough to make Logan's eyes narrow as he unfolds it.

It's a mess of partitions and scribbled notes, carefully laid out for the most part, but haphazard. "Cap," Barton says, "Cap wrote it out."

"Captain America wrote you sex notes?" Logan asks and Barton nods.

"Heat notes, anyway. And we call him 'Steve'," he says, even though he calls him _Cap_ himself, at least half of the time. Then, "They don't all hold anymore. You can--I'm alright with the--"

"Or you wouldn't be here." Logan finishes for him, and puts the paper down. Weighs it down with his empty mug, even though there's no breeze to blow through the boathouse.

Barton eyes the paper, then looks away, out of the door and towards the water. "I wouldn't have just dropped off the map, even if I couldn't do this anymore. I'd have dropped you a line. I just needed to get my head together."

Logan doubts he's managed that already, but he doesn't comment. He nods at the paper, "Your team--?" There's items on that list that he doesn't know what to make of and he will gut Captain America and Iron Man and even the Hulk if he has to. If that whiff of terror on the paper has anything to do with them.

"Took care of me. Loaned me a motorcycle," He pulls out a cellphone and sets it on the table, next to the mug and on top of the paper, "and put a tracking device in my phone that they think I don't know about. And in my jacket," he says, and flips the collar to show Logan the little metallic pip fastened there, positioned to look like a button.

"Come here," Logan says, and Barton puts his mug in the sink and pushes off the counter to stand in front of him. Lets him tug the jacket off his shoulders and toss it over a chair. It's so hot out that the only way Barton is possibly tolerating wearing it for so long is because he's starting in on that fever-chills ramp-up to heat, and as suspected, his skin is hot and barely damp under Logan's fingers. 

The heat-chill and the oppressive warmth of the day together are bad news. Barton wouldn't be the first omega to give himself heatstroke while his perceptions were blown to hell. "How d'you feel?" Logan asks, bringing his hands to rest on Barton's hips, fingers brushing up past the waist of his battered jeans, to graze over skin, pushing up the hem of his t-shirt--a mock-faded thing proclaiming _Stark Ind._ in what's become the familiar Avengers typeface, and _revolutions in energy_.

"Mm," Barton says, or murmurs, rather. He has to bend to lay his head on Logan's shoulder, but he manages without looking awkward or silly. Logan catches him before he can slide to his knees.

"Easy there," Logan says, and lets himself grin. Barton's surprisingly easy submission is one of Logan's favorite things about him, that and the way it clashes with his stubborn independence. They have old rules to go with the new rules Rogers has written out. Barton won't be owned, Barton won't be dictated to, won't let anyone presume their approval or disapproval of him is a measure of anything. He's tame and skittish and dangerous at the same time, and with the scent of his heat in the mix it's all Logan can do to let go of him again and give him a little push towards the fridge.

"There's water in there. Cold." It's just tap water in a jug, but the tap's been running tepid, at best. Barton does as he's told and pours the water into a glass. It looks like the cold hurts him--he keeps adjusting his grip on the glass, like a kid holding ice cubes--and takes small, measured sips.

"Good," Logan says, and knows Barton lets him get away with it when he doesn't others, but only by a fine margin. Only because they've been at this for a while and Logan's never tried to stake any further claim.

Barton finishes the water and pours out another half a glass, not so screwed up yet that he doesn't recognize he needs the fluids, even though Logan can tell he's forcing it down, the cold probably uncomfortable with his raised body temperature.

Logan lets him finish, then asks, "Where's the bike?"

"End of the dock," Barton says, but stays where he is. He doesn't look like he's keen on the idea of moving, and Logan wonders how he's managed to get here, on his own and on a motorcycle, and--and Barton would have a fit if he knew he was thinking it--how his team could have let him.

Logan can check out at the Captain America bike later. He'll have to move it anyway, in case the weather changes, because the muggy stillness could mean a storm on the way and Barton won't be in any shape to care or do anything about it, soon. Maybe isn't _now_. "We can stick X decals on it," Barton suggests, and Logan bops him gently on the side of the head. He'd have been rougher, in the past, but that paper on the table is like a beacon, the trace of panic clinging to the paper burning in Logan's nostrils despite the faintness of the scent.

" _All_ over it," Barton continues, and comes back to press his cheek against the side of Logan's head, his breath warm against his ear.

"He'd kill you," Logan says, and brings a hand up to grip the back of Barton's neck, bringing his head back to his shoulder. Barton presses his face closer, inhaling deeply, tongue darting to taste Logan's throat, and it's tentative in a way that Barton hasn't really been before. His new fragility hits something in Logan that's been snarling and restless since the first wafting scent of him.

Barton's strong, for a human, but nothing that Logan couldn't take straight to the floor in a heartbeat. Nothing that he can't have the moment he wants it. "You think this is a good idea?" Logan asks, riding out the instinctual urge to use his grip on Barton's neck to shove him hard to the table. This time, when Barton slides downward, he lets him go. Lets him rest his head on Logan's hip.

" _Yes_ ," Barton says, into Logan's thigh. His hand snakes around until he's got an arm wrapped loosely around Logan's leg and then, suddenly, he pulls back. "Shit," he says, "Shit, I didn't think. I just."

Something is off about his scent. It's still Barton and the slowly increasing shrill of _omega! omega!_ but there's also the bite of alarm to it now, metallic and sharp. He's never smelled that particular mix on Barton before.

"I don't. I shouldn't have," Barton's babbling half-sentences, but Logan can put it together well enough. 

"I ever turn you away before, turkey brains?" 

Barton stops dead, then shakes his head. "No. But."

"So what makes you think I'd want to now? You're hot, Hawkeye. You're not that hot that I can't say no." Not until his heat's further along, anyway, but Barton's never turned up in that far gone a state. At least, not yet, and Logan thinks if he ever does, it's going to be more of a problem for Barton than for him.

Logan looks down at him, at the way he's mussed and breathing a bit hard already, and at the way his eyes are blown and strokes a hand through his hair. "Stay right there, Clint. I'm going to give Hank a call and let him know what's up."

Barton nods and straightens, but he shivers when Logan steps away from him, towards the phone. It's an old rotary, but it suits the boathouse, where time seems to have stopped sometime in the fifties or sixties--with its old style fridge and stove, and dated curtains. With the rickety screen door. "No drugs," Barton says, staying on his knees where Logan's left him. 

Logan nods and dials. Says, "Hey doc," and Barton tilts his head in momentary confusion, then shakes it off. _Banner_ , Logan remembers. Barton calls him 'doc' in the same way the X-men refer to Hank. He's further along than he smells, if he's getting lost that easily. How _the hell_ have his team allowed him to drive himself up alone from the city? Another hour or so on the road and he'd have been liable to wrap himself around a tree. "I have an Avenger here who's about three seconds away from omega meltdown," he tells Hank and hears a thoughtful _hrmm_ \--big blue sounding stodgy and professorial.

"Clint?" Hank wants to know, even though the answer is obvious. He's looked Barton over before, when he's shown up in less than stellar shape, or in the early days when he'd been all antagonism and rebellion and Logan had been feral with the scent of his cycle and things had gotten rougher than either of them had intended. "Want me to come down?"

"No," Logan looks from Clint to the rumpled paper still held in place by his empty coffee mug and lowers his voice, "But--He's been through something. D'you think you could stay on call a few days?" The lack of detail, more than anything, gives it away.

"Oh dear," Hank says, "Are you the best choice for this?"

That's Logan's thought, too. "Probably not, but it's the one he made."

"Try not to--" Hank remembers the early days too, but they've moved on a long time ago. They've got each other figured now.

"I know,' Logan says, and that thing inside him snarls possessively. _Barton knows his place now_ , is the animal spin on it, but Logan knows his, too. They're not fighting for control anymore. Haven't been, for a while. Still. "Try to call every so often, huh?"

"If you don't pick up, I'm breaking down the door," Hank promises, "Do you need anything?"

"Nothing." There's food, there's water, there's beer. There's Barton, being uncharacteristically patient. They'll survive four or five days with that. "He doesn't want any drugs," he says, passing on Barton's request, "if you need to make that call." It's unlikely, but it's best to play it safe. 

"Noted," Hank says, "I'll call back tonight," and hangs up. Logan puts the phone back on its cradle and it makes a soft ping-whirr sound as the mechanism disconnects.

"This place would make Tony crazy," Barton muses. "Done with your prep? Gonna come back and--" 

"And what?" Logan grins, all teeth as he closes the distance and tilts Barton's head up, thumb brushing over his lips. Barton opens his mouth a little and tries to pull the digit in, and when Logan denies him, tastes with his tongue instead, making a soft whining noise in his throat.

Barton's not going to answer, so Logan tugs him back to his feet. "Come on. Not in the kitchen," and smiles when Barton blinks at it and lets his head dip. "Still don't like being told no, huh?" Logan teases and gives him a quick pat, "You're fine. Come on."

And that's when Barton's phone goes nuts, blaring pop music overlaid with someone shouting "Mjolnir! Mjolnir!" in an awkward repetition that means it's been looped together. Logan shoots a look at Barton, but he seems just as surprised, his face all hazy confusion, like he can't unravel what the noise means. And then it cuts out and is replaced with someone else yelling, "Pick up your phone! Pick up your phone! I know where you are, Barton! I can be there in--" the voice cuts to the blank tone of an automated voice, "eighteen minutes--" and back, "and don't think I won't come because I will. Pick up your phone!" 

Logan picks it up and flips it open and is greeted by the face of celebrity asshole Tony Stark, gazing in surprise and then amusement from the little screen, "Well, well. If it isn't Wolverine. Where's Barton?"

Stark's an alpha, so it's not like Logan doesn't know what the garish ring tone is all about. He turns the phone to give Stark an eyeful of Barton looking disheveled and out of sorts, eyes huge and soft, lips parted, then turns it back to smirk. 

"Clint, you minx," Tony calls, his voice pitched to carry beyond Logan. Then, quieter, "He okay?"

"So far. He was barely holding it back when he got here. You let him drive alo--"

"Hardly," Tony cuts in, "If you don't think we have our eye on him," he trails off, then says, "But don't tell him that. He'll get pissy." And then says, "We'll be in touch. You kids have fun now," and gives him an easy grin and wink--surprisingly easy, considering Barton's wearing the claim of his team all over him, with the Cap-A bike and the phone's obnoxious ring and the SI merchandise t-shirt.

The t-shirt.

Logan peels it off Barton and holds it up for the phone's camera, so Tony can see him toss away that banner of _Stark_. "He's not yours," he says.

"He's made that abundantly clear," Tony huffs, irritatingly amused, "But I think you're probably getting that very same valentine's day card, so enjoy your one sided pissing contest. And don't think he won't remember you undressing him to prove a point. He's a grudge holder." 

Not really, in Logan's experience, but he's not stupid enough to try to out-talk Tony Stark. Instead, he hangs up. The phone rings again to inform him that Tony can be there in --sixteen point three minutes-- before it's disconnected and is silent.

Barton looks a little stunned by the whole thing--the noise, the mutual alpha antagonism, the weirdness of his other life infringing on this one, maybe. Logan presses the phone into his hand and puts his palm on Barton's side to steer him further into the house, out of the sun-warmed--over warmed--kitchen and into the shaded cool of the living room, where he has the windows thrown open and a fan spinning, its ancient off-balance blades making a soft chopping noise as they turn. Barton shivers in the artificial breeze and Logan gives him a little push, making him step out of the wind.

It's a bit disconcerting how easily Barton goes, no sniping, no sarcasm, no resistance just-because. His only protest is when Logan starts undoing his jeans, and that only because Logan's still dressed--although sort of minimally in a worn-thin t-shirt with the sleeves long since gone, and swim trunks he'd found in the boathouse closet when the temperature hit the high nineties.

Barton fumbles the shirt off him, all desperate, hungry noises and frustration when the fabric catches on Logan's elbows, or under his chin when Barton tries to yank it off. "Ow. Easy, Clint. Shh." He's not used to shushing Barton, but then, he's not used to the way Barton jerks back at his protest, either, hands falling away to fidget at his sides.

He hears _locked me in with them_ again, as Barton stumbles back a little bit. He's never been particularly good with correction, except back when the heats he'd spent with Logan were more like an extended fight than anything else--and even that was just things being overshadowed by hostility and peeve--but this is too much of a reaction for a stuck shirt.

Logan pulls it the rest of the way off and sends it flying, to land in a heap somewhere behind the striped loveseat that's a relic of Cyke's early married days, part of Jean's attempt to update the boathouse from its time-stuck charm. "Come on, Clint," he says, low, not so much the soothing tone one would use to cajole a spooked animal, but the low rumble of--not threat, exactly, but something a bit like it. 

Barton starts, then cautiously edges close again. There's a look in his eyes that Logan doesn't like, shuttered and blank, and he strokes up and down Barton's sides until it eases. The heat-scent isn't so strong yet that Barton should be as out of it as this. 

"Clint?" Logan tries, keeping the growl out of his voice this time, and Barton blinks--a rapid flutter before he focuses, but even after that his eyes are hazed. He says something in response, but it comes out as a mutter--soft and unintelligible. "You losing it?"

"Kinda." Barton's voice is low, a miserable whisper, "I don't. _Logan_."

He shouldn't have come. Not when he was still so fragile and with the smell of his cycle driving Logan closer to that feral edge. He almost hopes for Barton's phone to announce _I can be there in --three-- minutes_ , but it stays silent which means he's going to have to deal with Barton alone unless he wants to ring up Hank.

Which means sedatives, and Barton's vetoed that already. That and being locked in a saferoom to wait it out.

"You've left us with very few options here," he tells Barton, reaching to pet his hair and Barton leans into him, going even hazier.

It's strange to see him this quiet, and if Logan didn't already know what had happened, everything about this would be setting off alarm bells. Instead, it sets off a snarl of animal instinct. It's more than just alpha reaction to how Barton's starting to smell--finally, and it's a relief that his scent is catching up to his reactions, that Logan can read him by it again. He grips Barton by his hair and pulls him in to scent him, forcing him down so he can press his nose to the back of his neck, to nip at the warm skin there. 

Barton moans softly and leans into him, turning his head to mouth at Logan's collar bone, and damn. _Damn_. Barton's heats are usually muted by at least a low dose of suppressant, or from having recently been on them. Logan's seen him like _this_ maybe twice.

He tangles his hand in Barton's hair and wraps the other around his waist, supporting him as his lean takes him out of balance. "You're going to be good, Clint," he says, in a low growl, and, before Barton can scramble back to indignant protest, "Because you and I aren't going to manage this otherwise."

By which he means, that animal snarling inside him isn't going to tolerate the belligerence that's usually a package deal with Barton, and Barton doesn't look like he'd tolerate the rough housing that would inevitably follow. "I will try my fucking damnedest to not hurt you, but you--"

"Okay," Barton cuts in, and pulls in Logan's grip, tugging his own hair as he struggles to tilt his head, to kiss and gasp along Logan's jaw. "Okay. Now would you--"

"Shut it, Hawkeye," Logan says, mild, testing the waters, and smiles when Barton does, going still and silent except for the breathy little sounds he probably doesn't know he's making. He's beautiful, in heat, lost in his need for touch. 

_Bed_ is a futon on a metal frame. A convertible-to-a-couch affair that's the abandoned property of some former student, left in the place of the king size that used to take up the majority of the loft. It's dusty up there, and cluttered with boxes and junk, and Logan's divided the living room instead, tucking the futon into what's probably supposed to be a small study or reading nook. Or closet, maybe, once upon a time. It's a lot easier to get Barton to stumble over to it than it would have been to get him up the steep, narrow stairs.

The bed takes up most of the space and the walls are close, but there's a window looking out over the water and a bit of the lawn. Trees in the distance, but close enough to be a reasonable source of shelter. It's no get away route, really, not one that has a chance of throwing Logan, but Barton's hesitation falls away as soon as he's taken it in, eased by the sight of open space. _Locked in_ , Logan thinks. His bed's been cozy and sheltered feeling up till now. Now it looks a bit like it's inside a box, but Barton's already moved past that, relaxing into a welcoming sprawl.

Everything's still, suddenly. He can hear bugs out on the water and some animal splashing near the banks. A low rustle as a breeze _finally_ kicks up. It's barely even cool. Just less warm than everything else outside, but Barton's skin comes up in goosebumps as the curtain shifts. 

It's a great time for the weather to change. It's going to blow omega scent through the whole house. It's a damn good thing the boathouse is a reasonable hike away from the mansion. 

"How many've you had like this?" Logan asks, meaning the un-tamped-down heat, climbing up beside Barton. Between him and the window, and he sees Barton notice, consider his blocked escape route and dismiss the potential threat before relaxing again. At least the bit of wind is dissipating the scent of him somewhat, instead of letting it build up in the small space to drive them both mad.

"A couple," he says, low, eyes flicking up to Logan's face. He knows Barton's got other alphas. With his _no one owns me_ song and dance, it would be a surprise if he _didn't_ , but it's not the sort of thing that's usually wise to own up to, this close to heat and with the danger of tipping an alpha into a mindless need to claim. "You _asked_ ," Barton adds, maybe reading the thought in his face. Or guessing it. It's not a hard guess. 

"They won't give me meds till things settle down," he goes on, grin showing teeth. It looks hard instead of amused, even if the rest of him stays pliant, letting Logan trace the curve of a rib, explore the point where it disappears under muscle. "Been stuck doing short, quick jobs in between." His snort could be laughter, could be scorn. "My life's very organized now."

His hands are drifting, a light touch, touch, touch to Logan's side, shoulder, face, in no kind of order, his breath coming in short, almost ragged puffs, but he's calmer. A little more focused. 

That's probably not going to last, but it's at least slowing things down a little and that's taking some of the danger out of things. The longer this _doesn't_ get out of hand, the less chance there is that it _will_ , and Logan's not sure how aware Barton is of that--or of anything beyond the immediate, really--but both their scents are evening out, going from fever pitch to something more slow burn.

Barton's got enough of his sense back now to take the initiative to squirm out of his pants, bucking his hips up as he tries to kick his way out of them. "Got this whole," he's panting, "whole _schedule_ bullshit." He's not getting anywhere with the jeans, and after a couple of grunts of frustration gives up, dropping his arms over his head in what might be a submissive gesture in any omega that wasn't Barton. "No paperwork, no ops. No bloodwork, no ops. At least I get gold stars for fucking my way through the Avengers."

Logan's nose twitches, remembering the trace of panic on the page of notes in the kitchen, but the bite in Barton's tone doesn't seem aimed at his team. It's just a free-floating bitterness. Like Barton hasn't quite figured out who he wants to lash out at. It reminds Logan more than a bit of some of the kids up the hill, but once Barton has it out of his system, he settles again, sighing and then smiling almost tiredly. Stays still while Logan takes care of his pants, yanking them down and off and letting them fall in a pile off the end of the bed into the cluttered little space at its foot, into an accumulation of kicked-off blankets and odd socks and forgotten laundry. 

He follows them with Barton's shorts, tugging them off a little more carefully, and gets his hands on skin right after, distracting Barton away from any unpleasant memory that last bit of undressing might stir back up. He's good and warm now, hot to the touch and slick between his legs, and if he was doing anything other than going where he's put, and letting Logan explore him, it would be like putting fire to a match. 

Instead, he's letting Logan take control and be possessive and not putting up his usual stink about it. His quiet obedience is doing a lot to soothe Logan's fiercer instincts, but it's not the way things usually go between them. Everything's a little too fragile and a little too sharp around the edges. Even Barton's emanating danger, bruised and injured under the surface, animal survival instincts held back by familiarity, but probably not by much more than that. At least, not once he gets further into it.

"Clint?"

Tinny music explodes from the other room before Barton can answer. Logan curses. "That gonna keep up the whole time?" he asks.

"Nnh." It's a sound whose only purpose is to make sound. Barton's not following. Maybe not even linking the racket to his phone. Less clear-headed than his attempts at small talk made it seem. Logan strokes a hand down him, from shoulder to hip, over the muscles of his chest and belly before reluctantly pulling away and he's half off the end of the bed when Barton scrambles upright, not grabbing for him, but clearly in reaction to his move towards the doorway.

Stark's voice demands a response from the other room, announces having a lock on their GPS location, and cuts back to music before shutting off entirely, leaving the place in silence again.

Barton looks like he's been slapped, alarm on his face, mouth half open and his eyes searching Logan's face like he's trying to figure out whether to expect another blow. Of whatever sort it is that Logan seems to have landed. 

"Don't." It's not a plea. Barton sounds more offended than afraid, "You have to--Deal is you stay." 

"What de--" The paper in the kitchen. All the little notes and exceptions. "Right. Anything else I'm doing wrong?" His hand is on the back of Barton's neck and it's amazing that Barton's letting him come that close to making a proprietary gesture, dipping his head and kneeling at the end of the bed, leaning his head into Logan's chest.

"Clothes," he says, in a pant, hands hot against Logan's skin, skimming the edge of the once-garish, but now faded trunks. The pad of one thumb catching against the eyelets a drawstring had long since disappeared from. "Maybe."

Do-able. Logan leaves the phone where ever Barton's dropped it in the next room over and shifts off the end of the bed and onto his feet so he can drop his trunks and kick them aside and out of the way. He makes an open-hands gesture at Barton, not flashy enough to be a _ta-dah_. Just indicating his stocky, hairy nakedness. "Happy now?"

They usually get to this point through tousling and cursing until he can get Barton pinned. It's a bit awkward to make the step with intent like this, but he manages to get them back to the point where they were before the interruption, putting tongue and teeth to the side of Barton's neck.

"Not th--"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm not trying to claim ya. Stay still."

"I don't have to." It's hazy. Barton reciting objections like some kind of automated response, but he's doing what he's told. Rolling easily when Logan nudges him, and spreading. Lifting his hips.

He doesn't need to make Barton acknowledge anything. He's got him, in his bed, under his hands, practically vibrating with need, and pumping omega scent. Radiating heat like a furnace. Logan wants to possess him and own him and leave the marks of it all over him.

He scrapes teeth against the back of Barton's shoulder. Feels him shudder hard at it, all nerves and sensitivity, the sensation forcing a whine out of him, then a moan. Then he's just panting as Logan slides carefully into him.

It's heat, and Barton's slick and ready without prep, but he still makes small, hitched noises until Logan's seated, sounding almost hurt, except that his back arches and his hips roll accommodatingly. Welcomingly. A long sigh escaping him like a sound of relief.

This kind of pliability and no snip is definitely odd, for Barton, and Logan wishes he'd put him on his back, so he could see his face. Make sure that he's still all there, that this is going as well as it feels. That Barton's still as on board as his scent suggests, all delicious musk, undercut with the salty tang of sweat. The faint, but rich traces of leather, from the jacket he'd been wearing and under that, even more faded, the soap and shampoo he'd used earlier in the day. There's the hint of sweet and fruity in Logan's nose when he licks up the back of Barton's neck, but no bitter, metallic fear scent. 

Logan fucks him slow. Barton's passivity as lazy as the rest of the day. Fitting right the hell in. The rustle of the leaves outside is getting louder, a little, but mostly Logan listens to the way Barton gasps and pants. Concentrates on the way his body shifts, clenching and relaxing around him, utterly out of Barton's control.

 _Slow_ isn't what Barton's after, heat-driven like this. Probably isn't what he'd had on his mind during his drive up from the city. It's probably torture, the way Logan's taking his time, making Barton feel every inch of every thrust. Slow drag out, slow push back in, until Barton's panting goes to moaning and then to a low babble. 

Begging isn't a Barton thing, unless he's in very specific, very odd moods, but this has a different tone. There's no goof to it, no pushiness. He could be talking to himself, for all Logan can tell. 

"Easy, Clint," he murmurs--growls, really. His voice coming from low in his chest as he shifts his hands, to get a better grip on Barton's hips. "You're doing real good."

Somewhere along the way, during everything that had happened since the last time he'd shown up hot and bothered on Logan's doorstep, Barton's learned to take praise as intended. He still makes a trying-to-be scornful noise, but his shoulders relax again, and when Logan picks up the pace a little, he lets himself be pushed face and chest down, ass up, vulnerable and submissive and Logan thinks _fuck my way through the Avengers_ and wonders which one of them had convinced Barton that this is okay. To drop all his defenses like this.

Probably not Stark, or Logan would eat his proverbial hat.

The thought of that--of other alphas with what for the moment his instincts insist is his omega, takes a bit of the gentle out of him. Takes some of the _slow_ and dumps it out the window, and then he's just fucking Barton. Insistent, demanding, pausing when Barton clenches hard around him before pulling out and rolling him onto his back, so he can watch Barton's face as he finishes fucking him and their bodies tie together. So he can be kneeling over him as it happens, leaning into Barton's body, pressing him down until escape isn't an option for either of them, for a while. 

"Huh," Barton says, like he's surprised by it. Like this hasn't happened to him in awhile. But he makes eye contact easily and relaxes into a sprawl, one leg over Logan's shoulder, the other bent and thrown out, spreading his body out as he pants, squirming a little, then bucking as much as he can, and then he's coming again, almost too tight around Logan's swollen cock.

He keeps shivering after that, shuddering, still so sensitive that he's on a constant brink. Logan hasn't seen him like this before, sated and still desperate at the same time, stilling then rocking against him again, trying to come again. Confused between _enough_ and _again_ and _more_. Logan can't imagine what his heats must have been like with less distance between him and drugged interference and with nothing to dull the edge. 

It's nothing Logan would want to deal with. An omega as breakable as Barton must have been is nothing he has the delicacy for. Even _this_ Barton, with his feet mostly back under him, and his body his own instead of a dangerous, treacherous thing he's forced to inhabit, feels brittle. Feels like something Logan could wreck as easily as anything.

He rocks back against Barton's demanding press, feeling relaxed and too-warm now that he's calming into a lull, slowly gaining distance from Barton's heat until he's able to really appreciate the noises Barton makes as he chases relief. The way he jerks when Logan wraps a hand around him, helping him along so he can be done by the time Logan softens and slides out of him.

"Come on. I thought you were going for the hattrick?" Logan teases, thumbing the tip of Barton's cock, grinning when it makes Barton's entire body jerk like he's been shocked. 

Barton's hands fall away, arms over his head, body laid out as his mouth falls open to let him drag in more air and exhale curses. There's no fight in it, though. He's _Logan's_ , willing and giving in and letting Logan take over the pace again until he tumbles back into out-of-control, gasping like he's being choked until he finds enough breath to wheeze, "Fuck, fuck," and "Oh, oh shit," and finally to laugh, a low, almost gurgling sound before all of him goes slack.

Logan slips free as soon as he can, and moves to check him over before tugging a sheet over them both, against the irritation of the breeze against over-heated skin and to block the few errant mosquitos that have found their way through his open window, restless in the low pressure of the pre-rainstorm air. He can smell the tang of it now, promising a reprieve, finally, from the sweltering heat of the last few weeks.

Barton's not asleep, but he is zoned out, ribs rising and falling evenly under the thin covers. Sweated hair stuck unevenly to his head and the smell of heat a warm cloud around him, mixed with Logan's own scent and the calmer note that means there's no urgency. It smells like quiet and comfort and Logan drifts off to it and to the sound of voices drifting from far away, up the hill somewhere, reminding him that the boathouse isn't as secluded as it sometimes feels.

And wakes to cool air blowing in and Barton's phone jangling and an empty bed.

Hell.

He ignores Starks's pre-recorded voice and rolls to push himself up, a little stiff, his limbs all feeling like they're only half-awake and taking their time coming back online. "Clint?"

The small living area and the kitchen are both empty, but Barton's duffle and boots are still there. Logan finds him a minute later, out on the dock, watching a still distant thunderhead, feet dangling with his toes barely in the water. He's had the sense to bring something to drink out with him, and if he was anyone else, Logan might feel guilty for letting him look after himself. Barton's always been prickly about anyone presuming he needs taking care of so Logan doesn't say anything other than, "Your nanny is calling. Again."

Barton snorts, and swings a leg and Logan hears the sound of splashing water. If it wasn't for the storm coming, he'd suggest a swim. The sun-warmed water might even be alright against Barton's heated skin, even though he looks like he might be cooling down, a little. Regaining more accurate, normal perceptions.

"You okay?"

"Peachy."

It's snippy, but that's often enough been the tone of Barton's post-coital banter, so Logan doesn't think too much about it. Just settles temporarily against the wall and tries to figure out what movement Barton is tracking, out across the water, given away by the tilt of his head. The way his weight shifts as he follows whatever it is.

"I'm gonna move your bike," he says, when he doesn't get anything more out of Barton, “before that storm gets here. The keys in your jacket?"

He doesn't get an answer, but he takes the silence as permission to go searching through Barton's things and heads back inside, propping the storm door open as he passes, so the growing wind can dissipate the last of the muggy air trapped inside, so it can blow the thick scent of Clint and heat and sex out before it sticks in the place and tortures him for the rest of the summer.

Barton's still at the end of the dock as he heads back out with keys in hand, and Logan calls, "Stay there, Clint," mostly to get a rise out of him. All he gets is a hand half lifted in lazy acquiescence. Another thing Clint's learned from the Avengers, maybe. To get a grip on his compulsion to fight everything he's told, the contrary bastard.

He hasn't learned to actually listen, though--not that Logan had expected it--because when he gets back from parking the thing in the shed, alongside his own bike, Clint is gone. Even the smell of him dashed away by the wind.

He also finds Tony Stark at his kitchen table, helping himself to cold coffee.

"No one answered my phone calls," he says, voice light. Like he isn't trespassing in another man's home. Like a missed call is tantamount to Logan having invited him in.

"Where's Clint?"

"Lost him already, have you?" Stark pokes at his own phone, then jerks a thumb at the one hanging on the kitchen wall. "That went off. I took a message."

Logan doesn't humor it. Just folds his arms over his chest to regard Stark which a flat look that doesn't even seem to ding his obliviousness. Logan can't smell if it's a facade or not, with Stark's scent obscured under cologne and hair product and machine oil and jealous alpha response to the presence of heat and omega in the place. Maybe to the presence of _Barton_ and heat and omega, specifically.

"He left this," Tony says, holding up the t-shirt Logan had stripped from Barton, "Maybe if you get a move on, you can track him before the trail goes cold."

That might be Stark needling him over any number of things, so Logan shrugs and, because he's civilized, dissipates the growing antagonism by nodding at Starks' mug. "I can put on a fresh pot."

"Oh? Excellent."

Stark's smug tone is falling a little flat, and when Logan glances over, he's looking down at the table top, smoothing the paper with Barton's notes down against the wood. He doesn't pick it up, though. Doesn't fold it up and put it away, even though it's obviously reminding him of unpleasant things.

"We were there," he says, just as kettle goes off, its whistle shrill in the quiet kitchen. It give Logan the excuse to turn away and let Stark tell the story to his back, if he feels like pushing on, to continue through the interruption, but all he does is release a breath. Long and ending in a puff.

There's no part of Logan that wants to offer comfort to an alpha, just yet, and definitely not an alpha parading claims to Barton, but he pours the coffee and sets the fresh mug in front of Stark before pouring one for himself.

"He didn't answer," Stark says again, with a note of apology this time. A bit of self-consciousness that seems out of character for everything Logan knows about the man.

"He was busy."

"I figured." He shrugs awkwardly. Like going against that logical conclusion is a little embarrassing, but not anything Tony Stark is likely to apologize for. 

"The rest of you gonna show up at my door, too? Do I need to make up some place settings?"

Stark grins. Gestures with his steaming mug. Says, "He's out back, by the way," as if Logan had never spoken, "Throwing darts at trees, or something. Waiting for me to clear out, probably." 

"Then what's keeping you?"

There's something hard in Stark's face, even though his smirk stays smooth and easy, and Logan thinks again, _shut me in with them_ , and tries to fit that in with the Barton he's just spent the afternoon with. With his easily sprawled limbs, and calm willingness, and eager noises.

Stark slurps coffee, cradling the hot mug in his fingers like it's not still a hundred degrees out, then gets up and moves further into the kitchen, leaning against a far counter as the sound of boots on wood announce Barton returning. 

"Fuck _off_ , Tony," is how he reacts to finding Stark still there. Stark waves.

"Come on in. Coffee's hot."

The hesitation outside the door is a lot like earlier, except that with the door propped open, the scent of heat is clear, blown in and whipped around so that it takes over the kitchen almost immediately. Stark tries not to react, but Logan sniffs openly, then shrugs. Nods Barton in.

"You done with your jump rope, or hopscotch, or whatever it was?" Tony asks, "Or are you just getting a cookie before heading back out to play?"

"Shut up," Barton snaps, still from the door. The combination of wariness and heckling is a song and dance Logan's seen before, though not with Barton. "I told you to stay out of my business."

Stark puts a dramatic hand over his heart, and Barton tips out of caution and into irritation and Logan might even buy the hostile way he stomps into the kitchen and past him, if his rumpled paper hadn't said _Tony_ , clear at the top.

"What did you tell McCoy?" Logan asks, changing the subject in case he finds his boathouse full off concerned X-men as well as concerned Avengers in the next ten minutes.

"That you'd call back," Stark says, "When you're no longer indisposed." He grins. Straightens. Pokes at the screen of his phone a bit, while Barton rattles around finding a clean mug. Outside, the first drops of rain are rippling the surface of the lake and Logan really hopes that doesn't mean that they get to keep Stark until the weather clears. "Also that you haven't murdered and eaten Hawkeye so he can keep his fuzzy blue panties on."

Barton huffs. Stark's an obnoxious asshole, but for all his posturing, Barton's fondness is pretty transparent. Another time, Logan might find it amusing. Right now, he wants to pull Barton back close to him, and throw Stark out on his ass.

"'I'm okay, Tony," Barton says, finally. If he's nervous about being stuck in the boathouse kitchen with multiple alphas, it's not showing. Other than in the odd softness of his tone, but that had been there before, already, when he'd first arrived.

Stark smiles. "Next time you don't answer three calls in a row, it's Thor's turn to check up on you," he says, and quirks an eyebrow in a way that might mean he's kidding or might just be inviting Barton to imagine it.

"That's possibly more drama than this booty call is worth," Logan grunts, but hooks a couple fingers in Barton's back pocket to keep him where he is, not offering any kind of real restraint. "Please get Iron Man out of my kitchen."

"Iron Man is leaving," Stark announces, and loudly finishes off his coffee before setting the mug down with a thunk. "Your non-ironic ownership of a landline is creeping me out anyway."

Logan follows him outside, leaving Barton alone in the kitchen to regain any equilibrium that being trapped in there with them might have lost him. It's getting dark over the lake, and the growing cloud cover is making the late afternoon look more like late evening. "He was fine," Logan says, as Stark thumbs open the catches of his briefcase. Logan hadn't noticed when he'd snagged it from by the door. Had wondered how he'd managed to arrive unseen.

"Yep," Stark nods. The wind tosses his hair, dissolves alpha scent and sends it blowing towards the woods, away from Logan. It's easier to read Stark in a sympathetic way without the influence of that clouding his judgment. His lip quirks, but his eyes stay dark. "Three heats, after," he says, finding Logan's eyes, serious. "Before it stopped being a fucking horror show. So excuse me for being a little concerned."

The Iron Man suit unfolds itself into red and gold hovering pieces, then attach themselves to Tony Stark, orbiting his body until they find a decent angle of approach. 

"He's not yours," he reminds Logan, once he's inside the shell of the armor, faceplate raised. Logan wonders if he ever needs to scratch an itch, stuck inside that thing. 

"Or yours."

Stark grins. "He's a little bit ours," he says, and hops into the air, a low hum kicking in and cool light flaring in the soles of the armor's feet. His faceplate lowers, then smoothly retracts into place. 

"Get off my dock," Logan says, and leaves him hanging in the air, not listening to Stark's return comment, and not turning to look when he hears the hum rise to a jet engine roar, then to a high, fading whine.

Inside, Barton's shirtless and barefoot and slouching at the table, watching through the door as the weather moves in. Warm and tan, and easy in his skin. Not unbroken, but pieced back together. The fractures visible, but holding. Heat scent starting to swirl around him again.

"Wondered how long you two were going to chat," he comments, as Logan kicks the prop away and lets the storm door bang shut behind him. 

Barton's hair is wind-blown and sex-ruffled. It's a pretty good deal to have him and a storm at the same time. Nothing to do but fuck and sleep and listen to the rain. 

Maybe pick up the phone a couple of times.


End file.
